Anthony residents won't see fire tax increase

December 16, 2013

Residential taxpayers in the Anthony Fire District will see no fire tax increase. The only increase will be a 10-cent per $1,000 rise for industrial taxes.
File Photo.

COVENTRY â The frustration that taxpayers have been feeling for the months over not knowing where their fire tax stands only got worse Monday night during the annual budget meeting for the Central Coventry Fire District.

Court-appointed Special Agent Richard Land, Esq. of Chase, Ruttenburg and Freedman, LLP explained that the issue lies with accounting errors that happened in the past three years that were never caught.

Land was appointed in October and since that time, has been poring over the districtâs paperwork in an effort to find where it all went wrong and caused a $2 million deficit.

Land put together a presentation for the annual financial meeting at the High School and as he presented it to the people, their anger grew.

âIt was a clerical error,â he said. âSomehow, there was a $2 million error that resulted in $800,000 loss in revenue for three years â that was the issue. I was not there, but I can understand your frustration and can tell you how we can work through this,â he said.